AQCESS Project

Access to Quality Care through Extending and Strengthening Health Systems (AQCESS, 1.3 million CAD, March 2016-March 2020) is a joint project of AKDN agencies (global) and AKRSP with an overall objective of improving access to finance and capacity building of communities to avail MNCH services. The project activities are on track with major support going to the LSOs (25) as Community Health Revolving Funds (CHRF).
For the period of June to September 2017, the important milestones of AQCESS project achieved included dialogues with Local Support Organizations (LSOs) and communities for identification and selection of LSOs for Community Health Revolving Fund (CHRF), formation and orientation of CHRF communities at LSOs, conducting Participatory Wealth Ranking (PWR) at villages in jurisdiction of LSOs, dialogues with LSOs of MCCS phase for management support, follow up with CHRF beneficiaries, coordination with Local Government and Rural Development (LG&RD) in Gilgit and Local Government in Chitral for strengthening civil birth/death registration systems.

Most of the said milestones have been reached at, and work on some milestones is in progress and will be completed by the end of September. For CHRF component, process of dialogues has completed with communities and community organizations for identification, selection and orientation of LSOs on CHRF followed by formation of CHRF committees. The committees are operational and they have led the process of PWR exercises in villages of selected 9 LSOs (4 in Gilgit and 5 in Chitral) for identification of the very poor, poor and non-poor households as part of determining socio-economic status of the beneficiary communities. It has been ensured that at least 40% of the members of the committees should be women. Coordination with Aga Khan Health Services (AKHSP) in the respective regions has taken place to give representation of Health Committee representation in CHRF Committee at LSOs. On completion of the PWR, training for implementation of CHRF is being conducted for LSOs and WOs managers, which is in progress. The training includes 9 LSOs new of AQCESS phase as well as 15 LSOs of Mother Care and Child Survival (MCCS) phase. During the said period, there has been follow ups with 15 LSOs of MCCS phase, which has brought forth the current situation of CHRF at LSOs and WOs, and also informed about the perspectives of CHRF loan recipients in the community. Memorandum of Understating (MoU) have been signed between AKRSP and LSOs for management support fund, where AKRSP is providing the LSOs with monetary support for a year for their operational expenses for CHRF implementation.

Under the Civil Birth/death Registration component the activities are under implementation in coordination with Local Government and Rural Development (LG&RD) in Gilgit and Local Government in Chitral. In Gilgit, identification of 20 Union Council, while in Chitral 5 Village Councils has taken place. AKRSP AQCESS team has visited the respective UCs in Gilgit and VCs in Chitral for identification of their needs for strengthening civil registration system at their offices.